


The Long Way Home

by Bill_Custard



Series: The Jamie Shepard Collection [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Aftermath, Background Relationships, Colonist (Mass Effect), Destroy Ending, Gen, M/M, Other, Post-Mass Effect 3, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 15:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 22,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19726723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bill_Custard/pseuds/Bill_Custard
Summary: I'd like to imagine there's a more interesting ending than the weird crash on some deserted planet.So here is a more interesting post-game storyline: the Normandy's stranded near Omega after the reapers are destroyed and it's up to Kaidan to bring the crew home. This also entails working with Aria to keep the peace on the station...Shepard, on the other hand, will have to fight a different battle, trying to adjust to a peaceful existence on earth without most of his friends and loved ones.After all they've been through - will they ever see each other again?





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the day of the reapers' destruction.

"I need to... just let me go, Doctor."

"You are very badly hurt, Kaidan. Just lay still for a moment."

"Doctor Chakwas." He tried sounding in control, but the blood seeping through his armor told another story. "The Normandy is my responsibility now. I need to be there."

"Alenko. You're my patient right now. You don't order me around. So let me help you take off you armor and lay still, for god's sake." She stared him down the way she was used to staring down cases like his. Shepard for example.

He gave in, sighed and started to get out of his armor, an annoyed expression on his face.

Chakwas wanted to be gentle with him. His physical wounds seemed painful, and there was a whole other layer of suppressed pain in his eyes. But she also knew him. He was a man of duty. She knew he would bite through any pain, run the Normandy perfectly, burn himself out, and then break down a couple of sleepless nights later with crushing migraines and a silent episode of depression. She knew it, because she had seen it before. When the first Normandy had gone down, taking Shepard with her, Alenko had seemed completely in control. One might not even have noticed that his best friend just died. Not if you didn't know him, that is. Chakwas watched him, but couldn’t stop him, and it took him only a couple of days to reach a state in which he locked himself in his room and didn't come out for a couple of weeks. And now, he hadn't only just lost his best friend - he lost his lover. 

Chakwas had been so happy to see their love develop. She had thought Shepard was like her - never distracted from work by love, always looking out for everyone like their own children, always being there for everyone, having friendships, but nothing more. And then him and Alenko managed to find some love in these horrible times of war, and she was so happy about it. It was a perfect fit - Alenko being the one guy who seemed steady and psychologically stable enough to take on Shepard, and Shepard being able to catch him whenever he couldn’t be this sane and settled. She could see a future there. And she knew they had planned for one. Which made it even harder to look Alenko in the eyes right now, to see all that pain and guilt. Damn it, why did the man have such puppy eyes, she would have to give him a hug later.

But first she took care of his wounds. It looked bad - what else would one expect when someone has been hit by a reaper. At the same time, he was lucky - it was mainly superficial burns and cuts and some larger bruises, and his head had not been hit. She had thought about recommending him to stay away from active duty, to avoid any further head trauma after Mars, but they needed him in this war. She would definitely do it - but not in the next couple of days. He needed something to do, and some way to think about the future, even without Shepard. And if he was just managing the ship and their way back, they shouldn't have a problem.

She let him go two hours later, when she was absolutely certain there was no internal bleeding. They had gotten status updates over the course of the two hours, hoverer, which Alenko received on his omnitool.

The first thing was, that EDI was offline. At first, Joker seemed to be frantic, but after every engineer on board told him there was nothing they could do for her, he sat down in the cockpit and just went on flying the ship. When Alenko checked in with him via holovid, they saw the tears on his face, just flowing. He had lost so much. Chakwas felt a crushing pain in her heart when she looked at Joker's face, the fun, sometimes silly man now reduced to pure desperation. She wished there was something she could do. She made the mistake of looking into EDI's core, since it was right behind the infirmary, but it was a bad decision. Everything in there was burned out. It looked like a localized brutal EMP. EDI was gone.

Secondly, they reached the relay, but it was offline as well. Alenko stared into the air for a couple of minutes, and she could see his thoughts racing. Then he said "If my theory's right, the reapers are probably gone."

"Why do you think that?"

"We don't really know what the crucible does, but I -", he smiled a sad smile, "well, Shepard - had the idea that it might send out an EMP that would only affect reaper tech. He hoped it wouldn't come to this. But if he was right, then EDI and the mass relays would be gone, because all the reaper tech is gone."

"I'll keep hoping that EDI is coming back."

"You saw that room, right?"

Chakwas nodded. He had a tendency towards bitterness, and here it was, in that simple, fatalistic statement. "I know. I just feel like Joker didn't deserve this."

"No. He didn't. And neither did Shepard. There's no way he made it out if he was at the center of that blast."

Unlike other people who would have cried or been angry, Alenko just leaned back, closed his eyes and breathed in a very controlled manner. Chakwas wasn't sure if this was healthy for now or an irresponsibly bad way to deal with his emotions. It was a way to keep going, but it would come back to him at some point.

"You don't know if he's dead.", she decided to at least try to comfort him, "He's a survivor."

Alenko smiled a sad smile. "That's actually true. Maybe I should not give up on him quite yet. If anyone can survive that, it's him. I just..." His voice actually broke and he coughed to conceal it, "I just pray he's not bleeding out alone on the Citadel with no one being there for him."

"So do I, Alenko, so do I."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the day of the reaper's destruction.

After a while, the pain stopped, and there was only cold left. At least his chest wasn't buried under rubble, because breathing already was a conscious effort. He had tried to wriggle himself out of the rubble, but he was stuck. It had taken him a short episode of panic and then he just lay still, concentrating on breathing, hoping there wasn't some part of his body that was bleeding out while he was trying to stay alive.

Not trying. Staying alive. He was a survivor. They wouldn't get him now.

It was almost peaceful, once the pain stopped - even though he knew that probably was a very bad sign. But he looked up - or down, from up here - to earth. If that was it, at least he would die seeing what he’d saved. And he had saved it, he thought, smiling. Between him and earth, there were at least 15 reaper bodies, drifting dead in space, their tentacles broken, their beams never to kill another living being again.

He did it. It was almost too much to take in.

And then, he saw lights coming towards him. Shuttles. Someone was probably coming to look for him.

His left arm was free, and his gun was lying next to him. He suddenly felt lucky when he realized that he had a thermoclip left.

Still, it took them a painfully long time to reach him - time in which he almost drifted off to sleep. He saw the flashlights in the distance, moving erratically, looking for something - someone... Once he thought they were in hearing distance to him, he fired a shot. Two of the lights stopped their searching movement and came straight towards him. He fired again, filled by a sudden rush of hope and impatience. Three shots later, they were standing above him, and talking to him.

He couldn't stop smiling when he was hearing a human and turian voice speaking to him. They were free and alive, because of him. The turian knelt down next to him, and asked him if he was conscious.

"I can hear you", Shepard said, and for a moment he was shocked by how thin his own voice sounded, "Could you get me out of this soon? I'm not doing so well."

"I'm scanning the rubble", the human said. She walked around them with her omnitool, while the turian staid at his side, giving him water, applying some medigel and holding his hand - a gesture of trust between strangers that meant the world in this moment.

"We're going to get you home", the turian said. "Who are you?"

"Name's Shepard", his voice sounded strangely high-pitched.

The Turian's mandibles started moving in an excited fashion, but he apparently tried to remain calm. "You're Shepard? By the spirits, this is – this is incredible!"

"If you say so."

"Sorry, Commander", the Turian said. His touch and manner were surprisingly gentle for a turian, and Shepard was glad that he was with him.

"What's your name, then?"

"Oh, I'm not important"

"You're really important to me right now."

"Serenus. I am one of the rescue specialists who volunteered to search the Citadel for survivors. And we found one." His vibrating voice was incredibly calming. He was probably trained for exactly this kind of job, but still - he was good at it.

"Thank you." Shepard didn’t manage to get out another word, even though he tried. His body was failing, he could feel it.

"It's Shepard, we found him, he's alive", Serenus called out when the rescue shuttle landed next to him a very short time later.

"Let's get him out of here then", the human woman said, "I scanned the rubble, and we should be able to lift it and pull him out if we're careful. But you two should stand by. He needs immediate medical attention."

The two nurses knelt next to him, scanning him with their omnitools. When they started lifting the rubble off his body and several strong hands pulled him out carefully, the pain came back with such a sudden burst that he lost consciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the day of the reapers' destruction.

"Major Alenko, you’ll want to see this.", Liara's voice sounded out of the com.

Chakwas had finally let him go. He fought down the raw, searing pain in his chest, that did not have any apparent physical reason, and forced himself to smile at the crewmembers he passed. If anyone needed to be strong in this situation, it was him. He needed to be strong for them.

He entered the bar, where most crewmembers who weren't immediately busy were looking out of the window. They turned around, the Alliance soldiers saluting, while the aliens gave him some gesture of respect of their own. It wouldn't be a problem to take over command, there was no one on this ship who didn't respect him.

The crew was looking at a scene that was, quite frankly, breathtaking. They were near the sun of the Omega system, and the light fell on a debris field of reapers. At least five of them, broken into pieces, drifting dead in space. Right now, this was one of the most beautiful things Kaidan could ever imagine seeing. 

He felt tears filling his eyes and couldn't help but smile. It took him a couple of moments to find his voice, and he didn't care everyone could hear his hoarseness. "He actually did it. The war is over."

"At least in this corner of the galaxy", Garrus said. He was standing next to him, his arm around Tali's shoulder, who was holding him tight while looking at the debris.

Kaidan didn't know what to do with this kind of emotion, because besides the grief for Shepard, there also was an intense, burning happiness and relief. If this was true, and the war was actually over - they had done it. They had broken the cycle. They had hope. He wiped his eyes, trying to keep back new tears.

He saw it on their faces, lit by the Omega sun light. Liara was crying openly, coming towards him after a couple of seconds and hugging him, which gave him the opportunity to hide his face on her shoulder for one very short, suppressed sob. Vega was standing there with a dumbstruck expression on his face, somewhere between disbelief and hope. Cortez was just smiling a thin, sad smile. Javik was kneeling in the front, locked in a meditative pose. Traynor was constantly wiping away a never-ending flow of tears.

Kaidan patted Liara's back, then he let go and called the personnel he had assigned to repairing long range communication on his omnitool. "How are we doing? Do we have the quantum entanglement communicators up yet?"

"Not yet, Major. But we're working on it."

He switched the channel, walking out of the room towards the lift. "Joker, are we close to Omega yet? Did you get permission to dock?"

He heard Joker cough a couple of times before his muffled voice sounded out of his omnitool. "We'll probably be there in an hour or so. We've tried to make contact a couple of seconds ago actually. Maybe you should talk to them."

"Alright, I'm on my way."

He entered the bridge, squeezing Joker's shoulder for a moment. "Joker, I'm... I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Never mind me." Joker's voice sounded very flat. He established communication to Omega.

"This is Major Alenko, Commander of the SR-2 Normandy, requesting permission to dock."

The heard some disturbance in the com channel, then a harsh female voice sounded out of the radio.

"Normandy?"

Kaidan looked at Joker in surprise, and saw it mirrored on Joker's face. This was Aria T’Loak's voice.

"Yes, SR-2 Normandy."

"Is Shepard on board?"

"No. He stayed back on the Citadel to win the war. I'm the commanding officer now."

There was a moment of silence, and then a deep sigh. "Well, I suppose you'll have to do then. Alenko, you're saying." They heard something resembling a chuckle. "Shepard seemed to like you. Why don't you come see me in Afterlife. I'm sure we can find an agreement to our mutual benefit. After all, we are stuck in this together. And you might have something of use to me."

"I'll be there in an hour."

There was a clicking sound when she hung up on them, then they received docking permission. He used the brief pause afterwards to rub his eyes, enjoying the brief cancelling of electric light this provided him.

"Will you be all right, Joker?"

"Don't think so, no. But thanks for asking."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Just... Just let me do my job."

Kaidan nodded, then left the cockpit. He was ignoring a headache. A very, very bad one. Not quite a migraine yet, but on the verge of getting there. 

There was much to do. But there had to be time for something first.

He went up to the Captain's cabin. Fed the fish. Turned on the music. Laid down on the bed, hugging the pillow, breathing in the familiar scent. It calmed him down. He knew he could handle the responsibility, and he knew Shepard would tell him so. He found Shepard's N7 hoodie next to the bed on a chair. Burried his face in it and suddenly realized how scared he was that this might be the last trace of scent of the man he loved, someday soon to be lost. But he wouldn't accept it. Shepard wasn't dead until it was confirmed. He couldn't accept it. Not again.

He must have fallen asleep for a couple of minutes, because he was woken up by a hand on his shoulder. It was Traynor.

"We're almost at Omega, Major, you might want to prepare."

He nodded groggily. The wounds Chakwas had patched up earlier were suddenly very painful, and his head was splitting. But this wasn't the time.

Traynor turned around in the door. "I hope I'm not transgressing - but... Are you all right, Major? Is there something you need?"

"No, I'm... I'm fine. Just very tired. I think we all need a very long, good, night sleep."

"That we do, Major. And now we finally can sleep. It seems the reapers are gone for good, not only in this part of the galaxy."

"Where did you get that information from?", Kaidan asked, splashing some water into his face while leaving the bathroom door open.

"Omega. They managed to get communication to neighbouring systems up. There's one message repeated over and over. The reapers are gone. The war is actually over."

Despite the pain and emptiness he felt, he had to laugh. "It's incredible. I just wish he were here."

"You'll do a great job as the Normandy's commander, Major."

He had to smile despite himself. "That's not the point."

Traynor gave him an understanding look. "I know. I understand. I miss him too. I just want you to know that you have our loyalty. The crew will follow you."

"Thank you Traynor. Could you tell Garrus and Liara that I want them to escort me to Aria?"

"No problem, Major. They'll be standing by."

"Thank you."

He made his way down to the shuttle bay, fighting through the intensense headache and fatigue. He joined Garrus, who was re-checking his sniper rifle. Probably more out of habit, there was no way he’d need it now. Kaidan's armor had been badly damaged, but his old, marine-blue one he hadn't worn for months was still intact. Liara came down, already in her light armor, and she and Cortez helped him put his on without any remark about the fact that he couldn’t do it alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the day of the reapers' destruction.

"Can you hear me, Commander?"

He forced himself to open his eyes, even though the light seemed horrifyingly bright. 

"He's responsive", he heard somewhere on the edge of his consciousness.

"Let me talk to him then", a deep growling voice said, and the schemes standing next to him were pushed to the side by a very large, bulky figure.

"Wrex?" He didn't manage much more than a whisper. Wrex didn't exactly have bedside manners of any kind, but he was really happy to see him.

"Shepard! You gave us a good scare - think you might need some redundant systems right about now - heh. Just wanted to see you before you went to sleep."

"What?" 

A doctor leaned over him. "You are very badly hurt, Commander. We decided to induce a coma. It will be a while unti you wake up."

It didn't matter. He was alive.

"Wrex - have you heard anything from the Normandy?" He hoped he could even hear is voice.

"I think they went through a relay before you gave the reapers hell."

"So they might be alive?"

"Probably."

"Tell Kaidan I'm here when you hear from them. Tell him..."

"Yep. See you on the other side, brother."

"Wrex...", he said, loosing consciousness.

He heard the deep chuckle. "Shepard."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the day of the reapers' destruction.

They heard the party as soon as they left the ship. It wasn't confined to Afterlife. Everywhere on Omega, people were playing music, they were dancing, and more than a few people tried to randomly hug them. But the party was centered in Afterlife. Seemingly, drinks were on the house today, there were more dancers and more people in here than any of them had ever seen. They only needed two glances at it, before realizing there was no way to get through and deciding to take the back entrance. The volume was borderline unbearable, and every beat sent a wave of pain through Kaidan's head. At least up with Aria, it was a bit quieter. 

She turned around when they entered her lounge.

"Alenko", she said, "You look a bit rough."

"A reaper beam will do that to you", he said.

"We have been fighting reapers not four hours ago", Liara said.

"And very successfully so, it would seem. There are no more reapers."

She waved her hand towards the sofa next to hers, inviting him to sit. Kaidan tried not to be intimidated by her demeanor, the way she was ignoring Liara and Garrus and commanding him around. He had the quick thought that if Shepard were here, he would be the one being ignored right now, but he pushed it out of his head.

"We both have something the other one needs", she said, not looking at him, "So... let's discuss business. What do you need, Alenko?"

"We need a place to dock, make repairs. Buy provisions and medical supplies."

"You've potentially come to the right place. Omega can offer you all those things. But I don't like you." She looked him directly in the face for the first time, her piercing eyes filled with something like contempt. "You're one of those holier than holy kind of guys. The good guys who do everything by the book and annoy the shit out of me. Shepard was a bit like that, but he was different. He liked it rough. The only reason you're here is because Shepard liked you, so you can't be completely worthless."

A sudden fear rushed through him. "Why are you talking in past tense? Do you know anything?"

She smiled. "Well, aren't you just the sweetest. No. I don't know anything, I'm just guessing, And that's the problem. I need your quantum entanglement communicator. I need your ship, as soon as it is repaired. I need your crew, especially the engineers. We already sent the first units to repair the mass relay."

"We are currently repairing our quantum entanglement communicators. But it might take a while.”

"Very good. At the current state of the galaxy, it is probably one of the most valuable things in this system. Do we have an agreement, then? Can you spare some engineers for the mass relay?"

Kaidan thought about it for a moment. They did need engineers to repair the ship. But if he just kept Tali and some part of a repair crew around, he could probably spare all the other engineers he had. They'd be stretched thin, but there was no other way.

"I'd say so, yes."

"You may stay then. Tell your people to join the party. You can start your repairs tomorrow. Today, we celebrate the end of the war."

She stood up and spread her arms. She appeared on every screen in the Afterlife and on Omega. 

"People of Omega! Let us raise our glasses to the hero who ended this war - my very good friend Shepard. Even though he can't be here with us, his crew just docked. Take them in and be nice to them, we owe it to them and to him." She raised her own glass. "To Shepard, and the Normandy."

Her statement was answered by an earthshattering roar. Kaidan felt his vision go black for a second, and he decided that it was well beyond time to get back to a quiet, dark place and get some sleep.

Back on the Normandy, he assigned Gabi, Kenneth and four other Engineers to the mass relay, let Cortez, Liara and Garrus peel him out of his armor as a team effort and stumbled into the Captain's cabin. He opened a ship wide channel. 

"Normandy crew, this is your acting commander Alenko. Aria has given us permission to stay. There's a party going on in the Afterlife. Apparently, drinks are on the house. They will welcome you with open arms. Take some leave if you want. Celebrate."

He barely managed to crawl into the sheets that smelled so much like his love, before complete and utter darkness took him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several days after the reapers' destruction.

“Hey boy scout. I don’t know if you can hear me, but they told me you might. Just wanted to let you know I’m still around. Made it out of the battle with just a few scratches. None of the students got seriously injured. Rodriguez finally got her fucking barrier up, so that’s something. 

It was an adventure for all of them, but I think they need a break. I need a break. I’ll be teaching in Vancouver for a couple of weeks, then we’ll see, maybe at some point we can rebuild Grissom. As soon as the relays are up, that is.

Anyways, just wanted to let you know: I won’t be here, like in the hospital here, when you wake up. But I’ll be in town. You can call me whenever and I’ll be around.

So yeah. There’s one more thing: If you die now, after all that we’ve been through together and all they are doing to keep you alive, I’ll kick your ass. So don’t die. Please Shepard. Just don’t die. We’re counting on you.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First day since the day of the reapers's destruction.

When Kaidan woke up, he was confused. Everything hurt. He was in the captain’s cabin – but alone. Where was Shepard?

And then it came back, and he groaned and buried his face in his pillow. Shit.

He just lay there, enjoying the dark for a couple of seconds. Getting out of bed hadn’t been this hard since… well, since Shepard died the last time. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t give in. They needed him.

He groaned when he sat up and it felt as if his head was splitting. This day was so, so bad already. But he had to function. He took another nose full of Shepard’s smell, pressing his hoodie to his face, and fighting down any kind of emotions he might have. There would be time to grieve. But now was not that time.

Getting dressed was hard, with his entire body feeling sore. He needed to see Dr Chakwas for a checkup today anyways, and he decided to go there right away to get something for the pain.

The crewmen he passed on the way respectfully saluted him, and he nodded at them, forcing himself to put on a smile. He had called Chakwas a couple of minutes ago, and she was already waiting for him.

“Good morning, Major Alenko”, she said, just a hint of passive aggressiveness in her voice, “I’m very glad you are responsible enough to come to me right away.”

He collapsed on one of the chairs. “I’m sorry, Dr Chakwas… You probably don’t approve of this, but I need something to get me through the day.”

“Let me see how you’re doing first,” she said, and he was glad she helped him get out of his shirt without commenting on it. Admittedly, his body did look bad. Appropriately so, considering the pain he was in. 

“You know, it would be wiser if you just stayed in bed today and rested”, she said.

He chortled. “Are you sure? Because I don’t feel like it would help me to have hours and hours of time to think right now.”

“I know. Also, as much as it pains me to say this, you are the most qualified person to bring us home. I’ll help you get through this, if you promise me to come back tonight for another checkup. And tomorrow. And every day after that. And don’t work long hours, or deprive yourself of sleep, or do any physical labor, or, god forbid, fighting. Maybe hold back on the biotics as well.”

“So basically: Don’t do anything.” He stared at his shirt, turning it around in his hands while she was applying an ointment to his burned skin and started bandaging him up again. How did he already feel this exhausted right after getting up? When she was finished, she helped him get back into his shirt and rummaged through her supplies to give him pain medication. Not that it ever helped with the migraines, but at least he would be able to move. 

He turned the little white box between his fingers, waiting for her to dismiss him. 

“Is there a way to get more medical supplies, Major? We did have injuries, and I expect more. We’re docked at Omega, after all”, she asked.

“Aria assured us we could buy them here, but there are no specifics yet. I’m going back to her today, I was too tired to work out everything yesterday. I’ll let you know as soon as there is a deal.”

“Thank you”, Chakwas said. She typed some things into his file. “Has your implant been acting up recently?”

He considered telling her, but he feared she might take the Normandy away from him yet. “It’s fine, Dr Chakwas. Thank you. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Not out of the ordinary since Mars, that was.

He got up and started walking towards the door.

“Kaidan”, she said, and he turned to her, surprised at her use of his first name. “Could you sit back down for a minute, please?”

He complied, half expecting her to scold him for something. Maybe she found out about his implant. Maybe she knew he was lying.

She sat down on the bed opposite to him. “I don’t know about you, but I, for my part, still consider us friends. Maybe now more than ever. I’ve taken care of you for a long time, whenever you needed patching up – which was usually more often than I’d like to see, but you do like to put yourself in harm’s way. You’re a specter, after all.”

Kaidan smiled. “I also think of us as friends.”

“Good.” She continued. “I just want you to know: If you ever need someone to talk to, or a shoulder to cry on, or just… someone to be there: I’m here for you. I’m your friend, and I want to support you through this. I want to do better this time. I feel like I failed, the last time you grieved for him.”

It made him sad to realize she thought so. “You didn’t fail, Karin. I was just in a vulnerable place back then. I’m stronger this time, believe me.”

“I know. I know you don’t need him to do a great job. But I also know you’re much more sensitive than you let most people know. So… Just take care of yourself. Please. Tell me if there’s anything I can do.”

“Of course,” he forced himself to smile. There was nothing anyone on this ship could do for him really. Except do their job and get it all working.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several days after the end of the reapers.

“Hey Shep. I just broke into your hospital to say goodbye. I’m technically dead thanks to you, thanks again. I thought I'd needed to let you know: Now that some semblance of order has been restored, I’m finally going back to being a master thief. 

They say you’ll make it through this. Call me when you do. I'll buy you that drink eventually, don't worry. I’ll leave a little subroutine on your omnitool. Normal people won’t find it, but you’re smarter than normal people. It will give you a way to contact me. For everyone else, I’ll be dead and gone. But if you ever need me: You know what to do.

I’ll miss you. A lot. I’ll keep thinking of you.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 day since the end of the reapers.

Before he went back to Omega, he wanted to talk to Liara. He tried not to look shocked when he entered her quarters. They were a mess, cables and parts of computers everywhere, her sitting in the middle, working on a radio. There was only static, no matter what she tried.

“Liara?” She turned around to him and gave him a very tired smile. “I guess all this means you didn’t establish contact with any of your agents.”

“Hello, Kaidan,” she said and put down the radio, “Not with any agents outside of Omega, and they couldn’t tell me more than Aria told you already.”

“Isn’t it kind of dangerous to let them know you’re here?”

“None of them know they are reporting to the Shadow Broker. They think I’m just another agent.” 

Kaidan nodded and sat down on one of the very few spots on the ground that didn’t have computer parts lying around.

“I just came here to ask about your agents, but now I feel like we need to talk.”

She nodded absentmindedly.

“Did you sleep at all last night, Liara? Because this room doesn’t look like it.”

“I… did not.” She didn’t meet his eyes.

“Look: As far as I know, Asari do need sleep. There’s no need to wear yourself out. You won’t fix this today or tomorrow or even in a week. Not alone. We need to work together. Take care of yourself and don’t carry the weight of the universe on your shoulders alone.”

The way she sat there, head hanging, looked utterly defeated. Then she looked up at him with just a hint of anger. “You’re one to talk”, she said, “You should be resting after what you went through yesterday, and I see you running around on the ship, trying to be everywhere at once.”

Kaidan buried his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes. Liara was one of the few people with whom he could let is guard down.

“You’re right”, he said, “I should be resting. But I have responsibilities, Liara. Also, when I don’t work, I start to think. And I can’t have that. I can’t have that right now.”

Liara hesitated a moment, then she got up and sat down next to him, pulling him into a hug. It felt good, being held by a friend, by someone who got it. He put his head on her shoulder and just enjoyed her warmth for a couple of seconds.

“I love him too,” she said, “In my own way. I always have. He's the most amazing person I've ever met. I’m very worried about him. But I don’t accept it. He’s not dead. I know it in my heart.”

“Yeah. Some part of me knows he’s still alive, but then there’s this bigger part that just says: This was it. This was finally it.”

“We’ll make it through this, Kaidan. We will see him again.” Then she pushed him away and gave him kind of a devious smile. “Let me work though. I’m 106 years old, I think I know how to take care of myself.” 

He got up, watching her grab the next best piece of technology lying on the floor. “Do you though? If you have trouble sleeping, you can always ask Dr Chakwas to give you something. Just… get some rest, ok? Because tomorrow, I want you to help me work on the long-range communicators. We’re spread really thin and I need every bit of expertise I can get on this ship. So: get some rest. That’s an order.”

“I’m not technically under your command, Major Alenko.” She smiled while saying this, and he knew her little rebellion wasn’t serious. 

“Yes, you are. You’re still part of this crew. And I’m the commander of this crew now. Deal with it.” 

He heard her chuckle softly as he started strutting out of the room. It was rather ridiculous, playing this card with Liara. However, when he turned around, she had gotten up from the floor and removed herself to the back part of her quarters, towards the bed. She saluted him mockingly as he walked out. Now there were only a million other things left to do.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weeks after the reapers' end.

“Shepard! 

Ok I half expected you to answer, but I know, I know, you humans are squishy little fuckers. Look, this seems a bit ridiculous, but they say you can hear me. Just wanted to say hi. I’m slowly going crazy on this planet. I’m mainly busy keeping the other krogan from tearing the place to rubble again. It’s kind of frustrating, knowing there is a future for us thanks to you, and not being able to go back. But hey, what can you do. Right now, I kind of wish there were more krogan technicians and less krogan warriors, then we could go home sooner.

Did I tell you Bakara was pregnant when I left? Shit, I’m kind of scared I’m gonna miss the birth of my first child. Bakara will probably give them a really stupid name when I’m not there, something like Mordin, or worse. That’s not what I’ve waited for all these years. To have a kid running around named like a salarian. 

So anyways… I’m really looking forward to having you around again, buddy. It’s just not as much fun without you.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Your engineers are doing well,” Aria said, not looking at him, “But there's not exactly a great number of them.”

Kaidan sighed. “What more do you need, Aria? I don’t have more engineers. But maybe there’s something else?” He hated this. The lives and well being of his crew depending on how well he could negotiate with this asari, who clearly had very different ideas what was morally good or wrong. And who also very clearly enjoyed his dependence on her.

“Well, you may not have more engineers, but you do have muscle.” She stared at Vega, who had been the only person not too busy with the repairs to accompany him, eying him from head to toe until Vega turned away, blushing. “You’re a pretty good fighter yourself, aren’t you?”

“Some people would probably say so, yes.”

“Dead people, I hear. You’re a specte,e so there must be something about you. I have a proposition for you. I know of a place on Omega, where you can buy all the medical supplies you need for a very modest price. I also know of places that sell food for all kinds of different species and spare parts, mostly salvaged, some of them new, for all kinds of technical devices, from ships to weapons. I will talk to them and let them know that you are having priority and that you are getting an even larger discount.”

Kaidan suppressed a groan. This would be very expensive. "What do you want in exchange?"

“In exchange for that, you are going to do my dirty work. You and your best fighters are going to be my personal task force and do whatever I tell you to do.”

Kaidan just stared at her. This was not the way he had imagined his spectre career would go. But he didn’t exactly have a choice.

“What… kind of things would you expect us to do?” He used almost all the energy he had left right now to not panic. 

Aria leaned forward, looking him directly in the face, and grinned. “Don’t look so scared. I’m not going to ask you to execute people if you don’t want to. I know you’re one of the guys who thinks he’s above those things. Not that I don’t think a couple of hundred years on this station wouldn’t change your opinion. But sadly, you don’t have that kind of time. Your boyfriend helped me out occasionally. He didn’t always like it, but he always did what he was told. If he and I can work together, don’t you think we can?”

Kaidan rubbed his temples. The music was too loud for his taste right now, even up here. “Yeah. Yeah of course.”

“Great. I’m just missing manpower, Alenko. Ever since Shepard helped me get back Omega, there just haven’t been enough people fighting for me. Fighting to keep the peace. The mercs are already tearing at each other’s throats again, and right now, there’s no one there to protect the civilians from collateral damage. Everyone’s going crazy on this station anyway, because we are closed off. If we're not careful, we're going to have a riot on our hands. We need to be able to live together. If that involves methods you don’t like, so be it. But I’m quite sure you’ll do fine. Someone needs to clean up this mess.”

“We’ll do it, Aria,” Kaidan was almost surprised at how easily the words came out of his mouth, “I just… I’m not quite in shape right now…”

“I can see that. You look rough. I have a feeling riots are probably not going to break out in the next couple of days. I’ll give you 70 hours to recuperate. In the meantime, I’ll be busy figuring out where to best apply pressure to bring order to this chaos. See that you try and rest well in the meantime.”

Kaidan nodded and got up.

“Oh, and Alenko?” 

He turned around again, facing her. Her smile didn't bode well.

“I’d appreciate it very much if you wouldn’t walk around in an Alliance Marine uniform as long as you work for me. Is it all right if I send you something more appropriate?”

Kaidan bit on his tongue, trying his hardest not to say anything hasty. He closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. So this was his life now, it seemed.  
“Of course, Aria,” he sighed, waving his hands through the air in an “I don’t even care any more”-motion. “I’m your man, apparently.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 day since the reapers' destruction.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several weeks since the reapers' destruction.

“Shepard – it’s really strange I haven’t talked to you before, but whenever I’ve been in here I’ve been really busy. Now that we’re alone and I have a couple of seconds to breathe…

I don’t know if you can hear me, but maybe this is more for me than for you. After the battle, I wanted to leave and get on with my life, having been pardoned and all… but then I heard they got you out of there and you were just barely alive, and I decided I needed to come back and put you together once again. So – you can trust you’re in good hands. I’m making sure everyone does really good work. And I’m the one who rebuilt you the first time, so there’s no one more qualified on this entire planet than me. 

It won’t be long now. The last couple of weeks have been rough, even with the war over, but I hope it gets better once you’re up and about. We could all need you, I think.

Cerberus is gone, at least no one has seen or heard anything from them since the war ended. Oriana is in Vancouver too, we share a little place right down the street. It’s nice to have her around, even though we barely see each other with my working hours. She’s looking forward to seeing you again. We are still getting used to a life free from our father. It’s… new. Thank you for your part in making all that possible.

Look, I have to go now. I’m really looking forward to seeing you again. It will be good to have you back.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 day since the end of the reapers.

“Damn it, Alenko, this was not your call to make!”

He glared at Dr Chakwas, anger welling up in him. “Wait… so you’re saying I should not have taken the supplies and Aria should have just let us hanging out there in space?”

Dr Chakwas crossed her arms, pacing up and down the med bay. “I don’t really know how to tell you this in a way that you will take serious, but you are not in any fighting shape. You won’t be three days from now. If you’re not careful, you are going to burn yourself out in a very bad way. Or you’re going to hurt yourself even further. Or you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“I didn’t have a choice, Dr Chakwas.” 

Dr Chakwas stopped her pacing and sat down in the chair at her desk with a deep sigh, suddenly defeated. “I suppose you’re right, Alenko, I did need those medical supplies. Badly. But how could you agree to this? Wasn’t there any other way?”

“I couldn’t see it. And just for the record: Negotiating with Aria T’Loak is completely pointless. She does drive a hard bargain.”

“So, you’re basically going to be her bodyguard for the next… what? Weeks? Months? Until we’re gone?”

Kaidan crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, glowering at his feet. “Something like that, yes. She wants me to protect the civilians from the impending gang violence. It’s not a bad thing. Look: Helping Aria is not what I want to do. But if it helps the crew, if it gives you all the supplies you need and if it gives us the sanctuary we need to literally survive out here – I’m going to do it. I’ll take care of myself. And you are going to help me get through this.” It was an order, not a question.

Dr Chakwas sighed again. “You and Shepard – you do like walking the line, don’t you. Let’s just hope your nobility doesn’t kill you, Alenko.”

And suddenly, the thought of Shepard was back in all its might. In the last hour, negotiating with Aria, and coming to terms with the idea of being her henchman had driven it out of his mind just far enough for him to get rid of that strange pain in his chest. Now it was back, and he cringed.

“I’m sorry, Kaidan. I should not have said that.” The expression on Chakwas’ face told him she hadn’t really thought about the implications of her words.

Kaidan sank down in a chair next to her, burying his face in his hands. “No, you’re right,” he mumbled, suddenly feeling deadly tired, “His nobility probably did kill him. And at this point… What do I care if mine kills me? I’m just being honest here.”

He felt Chakwas’ hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kaidan.” Her voice had become warm and soft. The way she spoke to him tugged at his heart, reminding him of his mother. He wondered what she’d say right now, but he pushed the thought out of his mind when he realized it just made him terribly sad. “Just promise me one thing. If you want to even have the slightest chance of being able to fight three days from now, you need to rest. Get yourself a good book, or a movie, or something to distract you, and try not to do anything. And you need to sleep. A lot. I will give you some pills, and… well, you’ll have to be fine. I can’t tell you anything else.”

Kaidan nodded. “Thanks. I’m going to go talk to Javik now. This is gonna be great.” Javik would not be happy about this.

“Good luck trying to convince Javik to help you with this.”

He just snorted. “Yes. This will be so much fun.”

The next days were still exhausting. Somehow, he managed to convince Javik to join him and Vega on their work for Aria. It hadn’t been easy, but he needed him. Javik had laughed in his face at first, but after a bit of persuading he admitted he had nothing better to do and might just as well follow Kaidan around on Omega. Vega wasn’t exactly happy about it either, but at least he could be ordered to do it. Kaidan needed their combined firepower. They were the best fighters in the squad, and they weren’t all that involved in the repair effort.

He tried to relax as Chakwas had said, but it was impossible. In the end, when all the command decisions had been made, he settled for helping the engineers on the communicators, using his own tech knowledge to help out. It was nice to work on something with Tali. She involved him just enough in the work for him to feel important, but not enough for him to overexert himself. She seemed to understand, having lost Shepard twice in her life now, too. 

He also officially moved into the captain’s quarters. It was a strange feeling, trying to think of them as his, when everything in here was so obviously Shepard’s. He used some of his free time repairing the ship models that had broken during their escape. Shepard would want them back, if – no, when – they saw each other again.

And then there was the incident with the memorial wall. It was the evening of the second day, when Kaidan was going from Dr Chakwas to his cabin to try and get some sleep. There was a commotion in front of the memorial wall. Liara, Traynor and Garrus were arguing. 

“What’s going on here?”, Kaidan asked. They turned around, looking caught. Traynor was hiding something behind her back. “Anyone care to explain what you’re doing?” He scanned their faces. Traynor looked guilty, Liara concerned and Garrus angry. His eyes wandered to Traynor’s hands and Kaidan followed his gaze. 

“What do you have there?”, he asked. 

“N… nothing, Major.”

“Right. Nothing. Show me.” 

Traynor and Liara exchanged panicked looks. When he saw what Traynor was holding, he understood instantly. It was a plaque, much just like the others, with “Commander Jamie Shepard” written on it. For a moment, he felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. Were they at this point already?

He stood there, staring at the plaque for he didn’t know how long. Liara had stepped next to him at some point, putting an arm around his shoulders. He pushed her away. 

“Where did you get this from, Traynor?”, he managed to ask after several moments of collecting himself. He almost didn’t recognize his own voice.

“I found it actually. It was already made. I thought it should be put up here and I just wanted to see where we would put it if it came to it. I’m so sorry, Sir. You should not have seen this.” She seemed genuinely horrified.

“Traynor… we don’t know if he’s dead why… why would we put his name on the wall?”

She shook her head, looking stumped. “We would have to wait for confirmation, of course. I… I think he had that already made for himself. I’m… I’m terribly sorry, Major.”

“Give it to me.” 

She didn’t put it into his extended hand right away. “I can keep it secure,” she said, “No one would ever see it.”

“No. Give it to me.” 

She obeyed, watching him with an expression of alarm as he traced Jamie’s name with his fingers. Then he stepped into the lift, clasping the plaque. “It’s alright. Don’t worry about it,” he said wearily. When he got to the captain’s cabin, he put it on the desk and stood there for a long time, just staring, pain burning in his chest. Why in the world would Shepard already have that made for himself?

He knew he had to sleep. Somehow, he had to manage to fall asleep. He read a couple of pages, but he couldn’t remember any of the sentences he'd read. Then he took some of the sleeping pills Chakwas had given him. He slept quite soundly after that, but in the morning, the nightmares still came.

Fire. The SR2 was burning. That reaper beam had come out of nowhere. Kaidan had been busy checking and cleaning his weapons and armor when suddenly everything had gone red, and now the ship was burning, while he frantically threw on his armor. He knew he didn’t have much time until there was no more oxygen left. He needed to run, explosions right, left, people dying. People he knew. Where was Shepard?

He found him on the crew deck, programming the distress beacon. They had to abandon ship. 

“Shepard!” He couldn’t see his eyes behind the tinted visor of his helmet when he turned around. “Will the Alliance be here in time?”

He was thrown forward by an explosion, tumbling in Shepard’s arms. 

“The Alliance won’t abandon us. We just need to hold on. Get everyone to the escape shuttles.”

No. This couldn’t be happening. This was wrong. Everything about this was wrong.

“Joker’s still on the cockpit. He won’t abandon ship.” And neither will Shepard, Kaidan suddenly knew. He couldn’t leave him behind. He needed to be the one to get Joker. “I’m not leaving either.” He couldn’t leave him. He couldn’t.

Shepard grabbed his arm. “I need you to get the crew onto the evac shuttle. I’ll take care of Joker.” No. No, no, no. This would go wrong. This would go terribly, terribly wrong. 

“Commander!”, he yelled, trying to will his feet to run towards him, to touch him, just for a moment, to pull him with him, but he couldn’t move. 

“Kaidan, go! Now.”

Everything inside him was yelling no, he knew he couldn’t do it, because if he did, Shepard would… And then he heard his own voice say “Aye aye” and his body turned around and carried him towards the escape pods, telling people to get in.

When the escape pod was jettisoned into space, he could still see the ship for some reason. He saw the Normandy, staring down Harbinger. In slow motion, he saw Shepard’s body getting thrown out into space, his arms extended, his head slumped to the side, a terrifying icon of the crucified for a moment frozen in time, then Harbinger’s beam extended inch for inch right towards Shepard. Kaidan started screaming, beating the walls of the escape pod, desperate for Shepard to hear him, to jump out of the way, to be saved – but he didn’t have a voice, or his voice didn’t carry trough the vacuum of space – and then he only saw the red beam and heard the terrible reaper horn as the man he loved was torn into a thousand pieces. 

He woke up ghasping for air, drenched in cold sweat. This was one hell of a fucked-up mix of “worst offs” in his recent years. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to get the image out of his mind. And then he couldn’t keep it bottled up any longer. His head fell on his knees as he started crying. He had left him again. Shepard, the man he loved, had sacrificed his own life not once, but twice, to keep him alive. Shepard had died, while he had been evacuated. Again. What did that make him?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6 weeks since the reapers' end.

He was falling. Space, his dream, is friend, his home, now his cruelest enemy. Trying not to panic, trying not to breath in too much air. Trying not to think about what would happen once the planet’s gravitational pull would really kick in. Trying not to think about what would happen once he entered the atmosphere. He was falling.

He couldn’t breathe, he rotated through space with the recoil of his own oxygen escaping. The planet became bigger. The sun was just peaking over the horizon. It was beautiful. Could have been peaceful, if not… All around him the Normandy’s pieces. This was how it was supposed to be. The captain needed to go down with his ship. Didn’t feel very right, though.

He was falling, air getting thin. Gasping, clawing at his throat, knowing it was even worse outside of his helmet. He was dying, the planet was growing. 

Then the heat, and the pain, and still no air. He wished he was dead long before he reached the point of passing out.

Then he was suddenly awake, gasping for air. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, his throat was parched, and everything was way too bright. He felt like something heavy was weighing him down. He started to fight against the restraints, but there were none. Instead, he threw back a hospital blanket and grasped the collar of a hospital gown.

“Shh, it’s all right, just calm down,” The face hovering over him made him doubt very suddenly where and when he was. “Shepard, you need to calm down.” Her hands grabbed his, pushing them gently, yet decidedly, back.

“Miranda?” He almost couldn’t hear his own voice, “What the…”

“In case you’re wondering: You’re in Vancouver. The reapers are gone. You saved the galaxy again. Welcome back, Shepard.”

He tried a smile. He wasn’t sure his facial muscles responded. Everything felt numb.

Miranda offered him a straw, supported his neck and helped him drink. How could this be?

“How the hell am I alive, Miranda?”

“Apparently, you’re impossible to kill. And I worked very hard on putting you back together.”

“How long has it been?”

“Roughly six weeks. The reapers gone, Cerberus gone… You did it.”

He leaned back into his pillows and closed his eyes for a minute. He needed a couple of moments to adjust to this new reality. There was no need to fight any more. No need for fear. It felt strange, not fearing the reapers. It had become second nature to him ever since he had first seen Sovereign on Eden Prime, what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Miranda… what about the Normandy?” He studied her face for clues, and his heart dropped. No.

“I’m sorry, Shepard. We haven’t heard from them. We don’t think they crashed, though. They went through a relay just before you activated the crucible. We just don’t know where they ended up yet.”

Shepard closed his eyes again, concentrating on his breathing. Kaidan. It had been six weeks. Six weeks in which, if he was alive, he hadn’t heard from him. He didn’t know he’d made it. It had happened again. And if the ship was gone, she had taken almost everyone Shepard loved with her. He couldn’t live through anything like that ever again. Just as he started to feel a burning sensation just above his nose, Miranda said “Have hope, Shepard. I certainly haven’t given up hope. I have friends on that ship too, you know. If any ship, if any crew can survive out there, it’s the Normandy.”

He suddenly felt exhausted, as if this had been a hard physical activity. Why were there tears dripping down his temples? Relief? Grief? Joy? Guilt? Heartbreak? He didn’t even know any more. Everything seemed far too complicated to tackle it right now.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 since the end of the reapers.

“I always thought the reason I woke up after 50000 years was to defeat the reapers once and for all, but I was wrong. No. This is what I survived for. This makes my people’s sacrifice worthwhile. They died so I could hunt a lizard through the waste disposal system of a dirty space station filled with primitives. Yes. This is my purpose. This is what I have been waiting for all this time.”

“Glad you’re as happy about this as we are, Buggy. This is it, right, Spectre? The pinnacle of our careers.”

Kaidan sighed. He could empathize – in fact, he felt the same. But Javik’s more active than passive aggressive nagging and Vega’s good natured teasing started to get on his nerves. 

“Of course it is, Lietenant. Who doesn’t dream of going in… there?” He gestured towards the duct. Their very first day was already a nightmare only a couple of hours in. They had chased the bounty hunter through the market, but he was too good. They had just been in time to see him disappear through the duct. He hadn’t noticed Kaidan had tagged him with a tracer when they had met earlier this day, before he’d realized they were there to get him and he’d run, but even so… 

And now there was no other way. He seemed to be trying to sit it out down there. And they, unfortunately, needed him as soon as possible to get an audience with the real deal, Vinia T’Preen – apparently some kind of rival to Aria.

The stench was already unbearable, and the thought of chasing someone through the worst smelling part of Omega… Well, at least it couldn’t get worse than their first day.

“Is there no way around it? Going in there is… not ideal. My senses will be completely overloaded. I will feel… everything.” Javik looked even unhappier than the last couple of hours. If Kaidan read his strange facial features right, he almost looked… scared? 

“You’re right, Javik. Maybe you should stay here, see that no one closes the hatch while we’re down there? We should be ok.” 

Javik did something that resembled a smile. It was absolutely terrifying. “I will have your back. Thank you.”

Kaidan returned his smile. Javik looked genuinely relieved, and he positioned himself next to the shaft, taking an intimidating stance. Kaidan felt like Javik didn’t have to make an effort to look intimidating, but it was a nice touch.

“Well then… after you, Lieutenant.” He made an inviting gesture towards the shaft and waited for Vega to disappear into it. Then he tied the blue bandanna that had come with Aria’s clothes firmly around his mouth and nose and followed.

It was even worse than he’d imagined. As soon as he crossed into the sewer, the stench got so strong it made him instantly gag. He suddenly felt lightheaded and he staggered towards Vega. As long as they were next to each other, they at least wouldn’t faceplant into the shit if one of them lost consciousness, because they’d be able to catch one another.

“How is this even possible, Spectre? This is a space station, not Europe during the medieval times.” Kaidan wasn’t sure if it was the dim light or if Vega’s face had taken on a greenish shade.

“Are you sure? Because this is exactly what I imagine the streets in Victorian London must have smelled like.” 

They were at the first crossing. Working with James was easy. They scanned the tunnels to their right and left with their flashlights, guns at the ready, back to back. There was something in the tunnel to the left, the one Kaidan was watching. “What the…”

Vega turned around and pointed his rifle at the thing. It looked at them, hissed and teetered away. “What… was that?”, Vega asked.

“Looked like a really big… rat? With a lot of eyes and… scales?”

“Yuck. An alien rat. We should have asked what’s down here. Could be anything. Wouldn’t want that thing to bite me.”

“Probably. But to be fair, I feel like you wouldn’t want to let anything down here bite you, even normal sized rats. You’d probably die of an infection before I could get you out of the sewers.”

Vega made a choking noise. They continued on, down the slightly sloped shaft, careful not to slip. At the next crossing, they turned right, towards the bounty hunter’s signal.

“So they just compress everything that arrives down there periodically and jettison it out into space? Doesn’t seem very efficient, does it? Why do they even need sewers of this magnitude on a space station? There's so much empty space.”

Kaidan had wondered the same thing. “Maybe it’s just for ambience. Omega is one of those places where you’d just expect a really disgusting waste disposal system. Makes the whole “underworld” thing more believable. Just imagine the possibilities for sneaking around. Probably also great for making bodies disappear. Or plain executions. The stench would probably do it for you.”

Vega’s chuckle turned into a cough. “No jokes down here, Spectre. Next time I laugh I’m going to vomit.”

“Suit yourself. You’re certainly in the right…” He stopped mid-sentence and raised his fist. They both stopped dead in their tracks and turned out their flashlights. The only light source now was Kaidan’s omnitool.

“What is it?”, Vega whispered. Then his eyes widened.

“Speaking of bodies…” Kaidan went up to the guy, looking into his face. His stomach dropped when he realized it was a child. He looked or a pulse, not expecting to find anything. The boy was dead.

“Doesn’t look like he’s been dead for long,” Vega whispered.

“He’s still warm. Looks like he’s been killed by a submachine gun.” Kaidan’s heart dropped even more. This boy had probably just been in the bounty hunter’s way. If only he had taken him more seriously. But he just hadn’t been sure if Aria told the truth about how bad he was, and he’d wanted to make sure. Now this kid had paid the price for his reluctance. Wasn't he even able to do one thing right today? “Looks like it was Kayin. If we’d been quicker…” 

“You don’t know that, Major.”

Kaidan nodded, even though he did feel rather guilty. “True.” He pushed the boys eyes shut and looked for clues why he might have been down here. 

“Looks like he was a thief.” Vega held up a bag of small but expensive knick-knacks that had fallen into the dirt next to the boy.

“Probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least now I don’t feel bad about using Kayin as our ticket to T’Preen.”

“Only now? He’s one of the biggest bastards on this station. Aria said so.”

“I don’t trust Aria.” He leaned the boy against the wall in a sitting position so he wouldn’t be almost submerged in the mud. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, putting the bag down in his lap. He needed a couple of seconds to collect himself, meditating on his mistakes.

Vega put a hand on his shoulder. “Are we going to take him with us on our way back?”

“Of course.” He got up and checked his omnitool for Kayin’s signal. “Also: I think we should continue in silence from now on. He’s close.” 

They dimmed their flashlights to a minimum and continued.

“There’s a larger chamber 200 meters ahead,” Kaidan whispered a short time later, “He seems to be in there.”

“There might be more.”

“I’ll go investigate. You stay behind me and hide.”

Kaidan switched off all the light sources on his omnitool and weapons and went on almost blind. Luckily, there was a faint light in front of him. He sneaked ahead and managed to peak into the chamber. The chamber was filled with crates on tables so they didn’t touch the mud. Sitting on one of the tables were two salarians. Kaidan recognized the one busy on his omni-tool as Kayin. He looked around the room. There was no one else here, no other entrance, and the salarians probably didn’t expect them. It was looking good.

He relayed the information to Vega. “I’m not sure though, it might be a trap,” he added.

“It’s only two guys, we can take them.”

“There could be more around.”

“We’ll just have to be quick.” 

Kaidan pondered for a couple of seconds. For some reason, he felt out of his depth here. He kept second guessing himself. He’d been second guessing himself since they began the chase. Hell, he’d been second guessing himself since he’d let Shepard go alone.

It hadn’t been made easier by the fact that he had had difficulties focusing the last couple of days, and his wounds started to hurt again. Apparently, the effects from Chakwas’ pain medication were wearing off.

Was it a trap or not? He wondered what Shepard would do in this situation. He was pretty sure Shepard would just run into the room, guns blazing. But he was different.  
“Spectre,” Vega whispered, “Let’s do this. We can take them.”

Kaidan nodded reluctantly. It went against his gut feeling. “Alright.”

It was, of course, a trap. 

Their initial plan might already have had a couple of flaws, but then it went sideways. Kaidan managed to freeze the other salarian and Vega took him out. Kayin, however, had gone into cover in the meantime, and he deployed a drone. While Kaidan was busy with the drone, Vega went in close, dodging the bullets, trying to take Kayin down in hand to hand combat. It might even have worked, if Kayin hadn’t, in fact, brought backup. While Vega was still engaged with Kayin, Kaidan got very busy keeping the three more thugs that seemed to have materialized out of thin air from flanking them. There was brief chaos in which Vega gained the upper hand and then slipped in the mud, Kayin almost managed to escape but was frozen into place by Kaidan, and Vega took out two of the thugs with a frag grenade. Then the chaos died down. Kaidan realized they’d brought themselves in a rather disadvantageous position right in the middle of the room. There was cover, but not too much.

“Come out,” he heard Kayin say, and he carefully peaked around the corner for just a split second. The bounty hunter had defrosted and joined his remaining companion – together with three more thugs, two of which looked pretty well armed and actually rather capable. He tried to do the math, eying Vega. It was not looking too good. How the fuck could he have been this incompetent? He seemed to have lost his edge.

“Look, if you come out, I won’t hurt you. Much. You’re Alliance. You’re worth something to someone.”

Vega looked at him, still grinning. The Lieutenant was obviously dead set on fighting his way out of this. Kaidan wasn’t so sure. He tried to think. What would Shepard do? He honestly didn’t know. He’d probably fight his way out of here. Maybe look for another entrance. Or trick the guys. But how? He cursed himself again. Next time, if there ever was a next time, he really needed to keep his head straight. He’d brought them into this situation because of his distractedness and now it might not only cost them their only bargaining chip but also their lives or freedom.

Vega was looking at him expectantly, waiting for his signal. He peaked around the corner again to check their chances once more. Maybe they’d be able to do it. They’d have to take out the bounty hunter first. It made their bargaining position weaker, since he was worth more alive, but it would have to do.

He signaled to Vega, and they both leaned out of cover, targeting the bounty hunter – and then decided otherwise, when the thugs were thrown in the air by a biotic grenade. Kaidan knew only one person whose biotic powers had this particular color.

“Leave the bounty hunter alive,” he yelled, joining Javik on his biotic rampage. He managed to pull off quite the impressive explosion with his reave, sending all of the thugs rag dolling into the mud. Two of them didn’t stand up again, the other two were quickly eliminated by a combination of Vega’s good shooting and Javik’s and Kaidan’s biotics. They didn’t stand a chance. Javik planted himself in front of the completely dumbfounded Kayin, pointing his particle rifle at his face. Kayin put his hands in the air, eying the strange gun with a panicked expression.

“Alright,” Kaidan said, putting on his best poker face (Vega could probably see through it), “seems like you actually ran into our trap, not the other way around. Now if you’d please come with us, we’d all really like to get out of this place.”

While Vega started tying up the bounty hunter, Kaidan turned to Javik. He’d never seen Javik’s face this strained. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what this place did to him. 

“Thank you,” he said, offering him his hand, which Javik only stared at, thoroughly aghast. Kaidan changed his mind and shook his head, feeling embarrassed. “Of course.” He instead put his hand on his heart. “Thank you though. I mean it. You kind of saved our asses.”

Javik smiled. After all the time they’d spent together over the last couple of months, it was still a bit intimidating. “I thought you needed backup after I saw two thugs following you from another tunnel. It seems to have been the right decision. It also seems like you cannot do this without me.”

“Of course we can’t, Javik. That’s why I wanted you on the team.”

Javik turned around and started walking, not waiting for them. “This place is disgusting. I need to wash.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6 weeks since the reapers' destruction.

It took him a while to really feel present. He slipped in and out of consciousness, only barely noticing his surroundings. One or two times, Miranda was there with him. Most of the time, he was alone.

And then he was suddenly awake, still heavy with the feeling of desertedness. He was, indeed, alone, and it was dark, except for some very low lights from some of the medical equipment and the shim of light falling through the crack under the door. Her stared up into the darkness, pondering what had been the dominating thought for the last couple of hours, consciously and subconsciously. If everyone on the Normandy was gone – there was almost no one left. It had happened again. How was he always the one left behind? The one time it had been the other way round, someone had tricked death for him. And now here he was. He shouldn’t be here. He never expected to be here. Him being here while Kaidan and most of his friends were gone, possibly dead – it was a reprise of a theme that had carried on all through his life. Everyone left him, sooner or later. Not usually by choice, but everyone did.

His feeling of desolation wasn’t relieved by the fact that it seemed to be sometime late in the night or early in the morning. He could see the stars outside of his window. With the darkness all around him, they seemed more real than anything in his room. Somewhere out there, maybe, there were still people who cared for him. But they were incomprehensibly far away. If they didn’t have a relay, they were, maybe, lifetimes away. He kept lying still for quite a while, looking at the stars. 

He tried to sleep some more, but his body didn’t cooperate – he stayed awake. Sleep didn’t seem like an option. He tried to move, very carefully, realizing movement hurt. It wasn’t incredibly painful, he was just feeling tender and was afraid of breaking something if he moved too suddenly.

Therefore, it took him a long time to manage to get himself into a sitting position. He was amazed it was even manageable. When he had been under the rubble, what had seemed like hours ago, but really had been weeks ago, he had felt completely broken. Miranda really was a miracle worker. At least she was still there fore him. And maybe he would be able to find Wrex and Jack. He smiled, thinking of Wrex’s last words. Wrex was probably loosing his mind by now. Somehow, Shepard remembered something… had Wrex been here in the meantime, talking about his child? Everything was fuzzy, but something was there, deep in his memory, like a dream. Maybe he wasn’t all that alone after all. 

Maybe he should write to Wrex, invite him over for the next day. His hand instinctually went to his wrist. They had taken his omni-tool. What if it was broken? He felt naked, cut off from even the last few people he might have been able to contact. It usually felt like a part of him, just as much as his arm. A strange panic washed over him, until he realized it way lying right next to him on the nightstand. He chuckled. The great Shepard: A guy who panicked in the face of spending a sleepless night without his trusty omni-tool.

He slipped it on his wrist, feeling a lot more like himself all of a sudden when he turned it on. With a strange feeling of nausea he realized there were no private messages. He wasn’t surprised, since not many people had access to it, and they were all... somewhere, wherever that was – it was still scary, though. He typed a couple of words, letting Wrex know he was already bored and would probably need some company soon.

Then he couldn’t resist pulling up his chat with Kaidan and scrolling backwards. He found a message he had written to him, a couple of evenings before the last battle. “Can you come up? I can’t sleep and I think I need company. Love you”, to which Kaidan had answered “I always come when you call. Be there in a minute. Love you more.” It blurred in front of his eyes for a couple of anguished heartbeats, when the cold pain of longing was suddenly as real and material as a knife cutting into him. Would Kaidan ever answer him again and come to him when he called him? 

From somewhere in his mind, he remembered he’d be waiting for him. “You’d better show up”, he thought, with a bitter chuckle. Right. He wondered if he’d ever stop waiting for him now.

He decided to deal with this strange, fluttering pain filling his chest in the only way feasible to him – by pushing it as far out of his mind as possible. It usually worked. This time, it only mostly worked, though there was still this cold feeling of desertedness, like something was missing that usually kept him warm.

There was something else he needed to see, and he didn’t want to. He distracted himself by watching the news, hoping not to get the information he was dreading so much. He was glad there were mostly reports about the relief efforts. People seemed to have grown together. Most stories were heartwarming. People being reunited with their loved ones. People helping each other through hard times. People sharing their homes and their food. People taking care of dogs and cats turned into strays by the war.

He could pass a surprisingly long time like this, kind of reading about the end of the war, but not really. He carefully avoided everything involving casualties and, especially, geth. Light had started to creep through his window when he got tired of reading the stuff and started, more out of habit than necessity, to check over his omni-tool. It was a miracle that it had survived unscathed and in perfect working condition. He did find a weird subroutine, which led him to an encrypted piece of code. He stared at it, frowning, wondering if he would open himself up for hacking when he ran the decryption, until he recognized Kasumi’s signature. He shook his head, grinning. Working on the encryption took him half an hour or longer. It was a good puzzle, though he wasn’t sure it was necessary. It was probably more something Kasumi did out of habit. When he solved it and got her contact information, he sent her a message letting her know he’d probably like a bit of company in the next couple of days or weeks. He hoped she’d come by when she wasn’t busy doing… whatever it was Kasumi was probably doing, he didn’t even want to know.

It took him the rest of the day to work up the courage to confront the issue he was avoiding at all cost. The day passed with several doctors and nurses popping in, being amazed at how quickly his implants seemed to have him going again, now that they were fully repaired. Miranda sat with him for a while, talking about Oriana and the life they had started to build together. She helped him shave, and reassured him that his new glowing scars would probably vanish much the same way they’d vanished before. Even though he didn’t care too much about his looks, it was good to know the machine part of him would stay hidden, at least from superficial glances. 

Then Wrex came to visit, and he was an hour of rather gloomy company. There was just no way to get to Tuchanka at the moment, and he kept complaining, even though he was very happy to have his friend back, at least.

He spent a lot of time eating and asking Miranda about the relief efforts. Only when the sun was beginning to set and she had excused herself to run some simulations for his further healing process, he knew he could no longer postpone it. 

Fighting against the rising terror he began to feel, he looked up the death tolls, growing colder by the second. He wanted to believe it wasn’t his fault, it had not been him, but he felt in his heart he might as well have actively killed them with his own hands.

100%. 100% of the geth that had been fighting and registered had died. He thought of Legion, he thought of that glorious moment of triumph on Rannoch. He thought of his own time in the geth collective. He thought of the beauty of the network, when he had been able to see it. The beauty of artificial life, which he had helped create, and he had, in the end, destroyed.

A sudden pain in his chest made him slump over, gasping for air. Was that it? Was he dying from a broken heart about what he had done? He very well deserved it. He had to close his eyes, the room was spinning out of control. That was it, probably. He hugged his own chest and waited for the end to come. 

“You’re having a panic attack. Breathe. I’m here. Miranda. It’s me. Just breathe.” He’d heard her voice for a while but only now did she come through. He did what she told him, concentrating on his breathing. Somehow, he wasn’t dying. The room was still spinning though, and he grabbed the hand Miranda offered him.

It took him a couple of minutes until his breathing had normalized enough for him to speak. “They’re all gone. Miranda, they’re all gone.”

“Who?” She looked bewildered. Her mind was probably still with her calculations, which he had interrupted.

“The geth. They’re all gone. The charge killed them. They’re all…” 

“I’m so sorry, Shepard.” Only now did sympathy grow in her eyes. She sat down on his bed, still holding his hand. She evidently didn’t know what to say. She was incredibly talented and smart, but feelings and interhuman relations weren’t her strong suit. He felt sorry for her, having to deal with this. He shouldn’t impose his shame on others. She seemed to be fighting with something, chewing her lip. Then she asked, carefully: “Do you… want a hug?” The fact that he accepted surprised him. 

It was an awkward hug on many levels. Not only was Miranda way too careful, as if he was made of glass, but they also both weren’t hugging people. It was still a good hug, though. It made him relax.

“They didn’t deserve this, Miranda. They did so well. They deserved better. It’s not fair.” He kept hiding his eyes at her shoulder, knowing well that she knew he was crying. But he’d never really liked sharing his emotions. They were one of the few things he’d always felt were his own, and people watching him being emotional usually felt like voyeurism.

“The universe is hardly fair, Shepard. How many people got what they didn’t deserve in the war? And how many more if you hadn’t ended it? It was war, Shepard. I think we did well.”

He knew in his heart it wasn’t true. Not in the end. He hadn’t done well. But he let her pull away, nodding at her in what he hoped was an assuring way. He let himself fall back into his pillow, feeling suddenly very tired. How was he supposed to ever live with what he’d done?


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A week after the reapers' end.

“Repent! For you have been warned, and warned again, and have not listened! And the blight that is humanity still lays upon the galaxy, spawning destruction upon our races! Let evil travel across the galaxy no more! The time of returning hath come! The time of standstill hath arrived! The human’s hubris hath wrought upon us doom and destruction! Let us remain, for we have seen what will come through the doorways that have been made for our culling! No more!”

“He’s getting crazier,” James said when they had passed the Mad Prophet, standing on his usual box somewhere in the deeper parts of Omega.

Kaidan frowned. “I feel like he’s drawing quite the crowd.” There was indeed a crowd gathered around the prophet – people who were not only listening, but also nodding in agreement.

“Primitives will always flock to the simple explanation.” Javik’s mouth was contorted in disgust. His mood was sour, as it was most of the time. 

“I think he’s funny,” James grinned, “I always kind of liked that nutcase. He gives the station that certain something, doesn’t he.”

“That certain something being the air of utter stupidity,” growled Javik.

Kaidan almost rolled his eyes. He found the prophet a bit creepy, personally. But at least he wasn’t doing any harm. The people he’d been trying to talk to for the last week though – they were a different story.

He was growing frustrated. He’d been sure things couldn’t get worse after their first adventure in the sewers, but he had been dead wrong. He still hadn’t managed to get an audience with Vinia T’Keyn, and at this point Aria as well as he himself was running out of ideas. They’d brought the bounty hunter to Vinia, and when that hadn’t worked, Aria had tried another present, information. Still nothing. They were now going around the station, talking to people who might be in contact with Vinia’s organization, and who could get them in. Aria’s idea had never been to keep them a secret, but rather to show her strength with her own little alliance task force – so infiltration was out of the question.

It was a frustrating thing, just being a pawn in their power play. He knew Vinia would want to talk to Aria’s people sooner or later – she had to. However, putting them on the wait and making them waste their energy trying to talk to her was a power move. She was just showing them that she could. And then there was the nagging feeling that she was growing more powerful in the meantime. He had the impression she was playing for time… but for what? What if her plan never was to talk, but to just attack?

The whole situation was giving him a chronic headache. Or probably not just the situation. He’d woken up with a headache for a week now, carefully avoiding talking about it with Dr Chakwas. The fact that there was almost no good news in his crew briefings usually made it worse only an hour after getting up. The quantum entanglement communicator was harder to repair than they had thought, but he had put Tali to the task. She was sure it was doable, but it would take a couple of weeks. 

There was hope tied to the idea of having the communicator up again, but also fear. They had considered the possibility that the other end might also be broken, but they had deemed the potential benefit worth the risk of wasting resources. If it wasn’t broken – there was so much he wished to hear and so much more he dreaded to hear. Recently, he had woken up from different variations of his nightmare, always him leaving Shepard to die, and he had lain awake at night, thinking of it working, of seeing Shepard’s face, of being able to talk to him, to tell him about his day, about his frustrations… And then he realized to his own horror that his thoughts had taken a darker turn over the last days, that he was doubting. Even if Shepard was alive, and it was a big if, he was better off without him. How many times had he hurt him, deliberately or not? He felt utterly unworthy. He had betrayed him over and over again. In any case, he needed to get used to a future without him, and he was working on it.

The relay was another headache. His engineers reported massive problems. They needed to start almost from scratch, reverse engineering a broken thing they barely understood. They were working on the scarce pool of knowledge they had brought to the table, whatever they had learned about mass relays back in their study days. It wasn’t much. It would take an eternity - it was maddening. Kaidan had assigned more people to the project, but it wasn’t helping. He kept thinking that maybe this was the reaper’s revenge – they were stuck because they had trusted reaper technology for too long. 

Then there were the long-range communicator beacons. He had assigned people to that task as well, and they were gone, and would probably not be back for another two or three months at least. Hopefully, when they did come back, communication to sol and other systems would be up again.

It made everybody restless, not only Kaidan. It was amazing how much they’d gotten used to the fast pace. A couple of months to maybe, if all went well, get results seemed like a lifetime without information. It was almost unconceivable that people used to live like this, many, many hundreds of years ago. But that’s what they had been reduced to: It felt like pre-industrial times, even though most technologies not based on reaper tech were still running. It really must have been their revenge, making every singe civilization so dependent on their technology their civilizations would just collaps if the reapers ever were defeated. 

Somehow, now that they’d defeated them, he had started to hate them even more. During the war, he never thought too deeply about how the reapers had made them their own worst enemies. It had been frustrating and scary to see people indoctrinated and turned, yes… but only now did he realize how deep the manipulation went, how different everything might have been if they had never been influenced by the reapers. He sometimes caught himself drifting off into fantasies about humans discovering long distance space travel by themselves. How would it look like? Would humanity have survived? And then he thought that no, they probably wouldn’t, and it made him even angrier, to think of the reapers of their saviors. Saviors in the sense that a farmer is a savior to a pig he saves from a well right before slaughtering it. 

The one thing he’d always known, the one thing his life had always come down to, was freedom. Freedom was the thing he’d have happily died for protecting. And all this time… All this time they hadn’t been free and what he would have died protecting would have been a freedom only granted by others, not their own. Sometimes he just wanted to punch something.

The only good news he usually got from Garrus – the ship’s repairs were going well. It was still strange, the Normandy without EDI, and a lot of the systems weren’t functional any more, but the ship itself was almost in decent shape. Had they had a worse pilot than Joker, docking at Omega might have been a problem, but he had managed, even in his state of grief. Since then, Kaidan had barely seen him. They’d held a service for EDI, which Joker attended, but he didn’t speak to anyone, not even Dr Chakwas. Kaidan became increasingly worried, but there wasn’t anything he could do. He’d always liked Joker, always considered him a friend.. but their friendschip wasn’t enough yet to get through to him. Another one on the list of people he had failed or was failing spectacularly. The only thing he could do was to see he had everything he needed and leave him alone.

They were just stuck, figuratively and literally. It was almost unbearably frustrating.

Aria’s usually stoic face mirrored his frustration when they entered her booth in the Afterlife. When she saw them enter, she stopped in the middle of scolding one of her batarians. His four eyes shot them a glance of relief when they entered, and he was dismissed with a wave of Aria’s hand.

“Alenko”, Aria said briskly, “Tell me you have better news.”

If only. He shook his head and sank down on the couch with a sigh when she invited him to sit.

“So. She really doesn’t want to talk to us, does she,” Aria said.

“Apparently, yes.”

“This is infuriating. I have been queen of this station for hundreds of years and now this bitch comes in and tries to take it from me. I won’t lie.” She locked eyes with him, something she rarely ever did. “The air is getting thin, Alenko.” 

He rubbed his temples. This was just so… fucked up. Aria almost sounded desperate. How could he fail so bad? And what – he didn’t even dare to think it – what would happen to the crew if he actually failed? If Aria didn’t kill them for revenge, their captain had still been the guy helping Aria, and if Vinia came into power, they would be just as much in danger. He should have known. He should have known he’d fail them. Apparently, he couldn’t do anything else but fail people who trusted him in recent days.

“Aria?”, he tried, carefully avoiding her eyes.

“Alenko?”

“Do you have any idea why Vinia might be playing for time? I think something is going to happen. Something is brewing on this station. Do you think there’s going to be a rebellion?”

Aria chewed her lip for a couple of seconds. “Not yet. I think they are rousing the common people against me. That is what we are going to have to deal with. There are going to be casualties.”

“What can we do to prevent it? I don’t think our current approach is going to work.”

“No. Talking doesn’t seem to be the thing she wants. Here.” She typed a couple of lines on a tablet and handed it to him. “These are my contacts who should still be loyal to me. Go down there. Talk to them. Find out how to prevent this bloodbath. I should still have enough fighting men and women to be able to meet her in open combat. But her use of omega’s people… of my people… I don’t like it when someone uses them against me.”

Kaidan almost chuckled. ‘Don’t like’ seemed a bit of a strange expression in that particular context. But Aria was a cold person, and the fact that she even cared what happened to the civilians convinced him he was fighting for the right side. Vinia apparently didn’t.

“We’ll try. I know what’s at stake, Aria.”

“Do you now? You know she’ll tear you apart limb by limb if she ever comes into power, right?”

“Yes. I figured.”

“Good. Just a little additional motivation.”

“As if I needed that.”

Aria turned away from him, a hint of disgust on her lips. 

“Take your desperation somewhere else. It’s very unbecoming of your face. You should smile more.” 

He rolled his eyes. If only she’d stop remarking on his looks. The job he had to do was demeaning enough.

He waited an additional second to see if there was more coming, but apparently, he was dismissed. Well then. Maybe he'd finally get to punch something soon.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7 weeks since the end of the reapers.

“Let’s try it then. We’ll see if you turn to dust when the sunlight hits you.”

Shepard smiled and took her arm. A joking Miranda was certainly something to get used to. But she had been a lot more lighthearted the last couple of days than he’d ever seen her. Shepard wondered occasionally if she was like this to cheer him up. But he thought it must probably contain some reality. It was as if a giant weight had been lifted from her. Not exactly a surprise, but it did make him happy to see her like this.

People were staring. Miranda had made sure there weren’t any reporters around bothering him, but the hospital was still full. It made him painfully uncomfortable. Not because of his limp or the exoskeleton or the way he was leaning on his friend for help. People were allowed to see he wasn’t indestructible.

The problem was that he felt exposed. Like there was nothing left to shield him from the outside world, no cover to hide from the shots a seemingly peaceful existence was firing at him. As soon as he felt someone look at him, he wanted to hide, wanted to cower in shame, wanted to tell them what he did so they’d stop looking at him with that insufferable admiring look on their faces and start seeing him for what he really was. He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be allowed to walk free, as if he wasn’t a criminal. He wanted to see disgust in their eyes, wanted them to despise him, to spit in his face when he got too close to him, not brighten up and smile and wave at him. 

Nothing about it felt real. The world around him was made of colored sand, ready to be blown away at any given moment, to expose the grey monotony below. The hospital, the grounds, the city… it all seemed even more of a dream, even more of a nightmare, than the dreams that came to him when he slept. It was wrong. It was uncanny in a way that made his heart race in random situations.

But he’d play the part for Miranda. In his heart he felt that this time, there was no coming back. This time was worse than the last ones. But there was no other good left for him to do in the world.

He tried to return people’s smiles and hoped his own smile wasn’t too ghoulish. Bad enough that he was, at this point, very visibly a cyborg. People shouldn’t be scared of him. They should shut him out, or lock him up, but not be scared.

He didn’t turn to dust when the sun hit him. Surprisingly enough, when they stepped out on the hospital grounds that stretched several hundred meters in all directions, and he felt sunlight – real Sol system sunlight on his face for the first time in what felt like decades - a certain lightness came over him. This, at least, was good. As unreal as the grass beneath his feet felt, he kept telling himself it was, in fact, real. There was still grass in this world. The sunlight was still warm and bright. Earths civilization would regrow. They’d just have to do it without him, because looking down on the city, some of the reaper parts still scattered about it, he felt without any doubt that he was done. He’d played his part. He’d saved it for them, at too high a cost. Now it was their turn to rebuild. This wasn’t his story any longer.

“It’s beautiful, istn’t it?”, Miranda asked when they sat down next to each other on one of the benches facing what was left of Vancouver’s skyline.

Shepard sighed. “It is. Hard to believe that only two months ago there was a battle raging in this very city.”

Miranda nodded. “It’s incredible how quickly everything is being cleaned up and rebuilt.”

“They are probably trying to forget. As long as there’s reaper bodies and debris everywhere, people aren’t going to be able to breathe freely.”

Miranda nodded and looked at her hands for a couple of moments. She seemed to be building up the courage for something. Then she asked: “Are you all right, by the way?”

What a strange question. What even was all right anymore?

“I mean… I know you must be going through a lot and… well… I’m really not good at this. I just wanted to check in. We didn’t really talk any more about…”

He kept thinking. He got her meaning. Of course she understood that he was just pretending. He wasn’t sure to what extent, but someone as clever as her wouldn’t be fooled by his charade comletely.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t think I want to talk about… anything… yet.” He desperately hoped she’d understand. 

She nodded. “If you ever want to, though… You know.”

“Yes. I know you’re there for me, Miranda.” He gave her a smile, a real one. It was enough.

The moment of awkward silence that followed was interrupted by the beeping of Miranda’s omni-tool.

“Damn it, Shepard”, she said, after exchanging a couple of messages with the person on the other end, “I think I’m needed in the hospital. We’ll have to shorten our little outing.” She got up and offered him her arm. But the idea of going back inside was even more unbearable than the thought of staying here. 

“You go. I’ll be fine. I’ll just enjoy the sunlight a bit longer. You can pick me up when you’re finished. Or I’ll find someone who’ll probably be thrilled to offer me an arm.”

She frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. See you later.”

And he shut her out by opening his own omni tool and furiously typing nonsense until her footsteps had faded away. Then, he shut it off again and took another look at the skyline. He sat there for minutes, maybe longer, not really noticing how time passed. 

He knew he should find it beautiful, he should enjoy sitting here… But nothing about it gave him any joy. They were missing. Not only Kaidan, but for a moment his longing for him grew so strong he could almost physically feel him sitting there beside him, looking at the same skyline, seeing his home city.

It was something he couldn’t share with Miranda nor, god forbid, Wrex. Even though there were a few people here who cared about him… He felt utterly deserted. Too many of them were missing. Too many of those he’d grown used to having around. At least 10 times a day he found himself opening his omni-tool to send a message to someone on his crew… only to remember that they wouldn’t get any messages he wrote for a long time, maybe never. 

How could he even dream of picking up the threads, few as they were, of his life, without Garrus to have a real conversation with? How could he ever look at an awesome piece of technology again without thinking of Tali and how much fun it would be to share it with her and be the weirdos in the group together? How could he ever dream of healing without Liara’s kindness and wisdom? He even missed James, having grown so used to his presence he kept turning around to talk to him only to realize he wasn’t there anymore. He wished he had Javik to put things into perspective and Edi to analyze him in her somewhat mechanical way which sometimes held deeper wisdom than you'd expect from a non-organic being. 

And, of course, Kaidan should be here. There was no way he’d ever be able to live a life without the man he’d finally held on to after all the times they’d let each other go. There would be no peace for him here without him. But what could he do? Where should he go, since this planet didn’t feel like home anymore? Was there even a place left for him in this galaxy, broken as he was? And how would he get there, since they were, for better or worse, stuck on this planet?

“Excuse me,” someone said next to him, startling him out of this long, dark chain of thoughts, “May I?”

He looked at the older woman pointing at the empty space next to him. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar. He invited her with a gesture, and she sat down, looking at him with a strange smile on her face.

There was something about her, about the way she looked at him… He kept thinking, trying to figure it out, while she just looked at him with her amber eyes, this warm expression in them, and they were so much like… And then it hit him.

“Are you…,” He wasn’t sure he wanted to say it in case she only looked like her and it would be embarrassing for them both.

“Kaidan’s mother. Yes. Martha.” Her smile grew wider when she offered him her hand. He took it, at a loss for words. How had she even found him? Had she been waiting here?

“I thought you might need a friend,” she said. He still didn’t know what to say. It was enough for him to simply look at her, see how much her eyes looked like Kaidan’s, how her lips curved the same way as his, how her posture, even though she was so much smaller and thinner than her son, was so reminiscent of Kaidan’s. He looked at her, trying to find all the things he missed about looking at Kaidan, and the fact that there was so much he could find there, but yet so much more missing, gave his pain a new quality. And then he was suddenly frightened. Why was she here? Did she know something he didn’t?

“Mrs. ALenko…”, he began, pulling back his hand.

“Martha.”

“Martha. What brings you here? Is there anything I should know?”

Apparently, she guessed what he was thinking and quickly put a hand on his arm. To his own surprise, he didn’t pull away. “Don’t worry, Jamie. I don’t know more than you do.”

The relief and the matter of course in which she used the name not many people knew him by made him smile despite himself. Strange at it was, this was Kaidan’s mother. If anyone could understand what he had lost… it might be her.

“I was scared for a moment,” he admitted, “because Kaidan told me to look you up if he died. I was afraid he might have told you the same thing.”

“He has, in fact. Which is why I didn’t come right away.” She looked into the distance for several seconds, thinking about her next words. It reminded him of Kaidan, carefully weighing his words sometimes before he spoke. Even though he'd only just met her, Jamie could see the grief on her face, in the lines around her eyes and the bitterness around her mouth. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. “I didn’t want to make it real. But then I thought, whether he comes back or not… We might as well go through it together, right?”

This was a lot. Jamie took a deep breath, trying to imagine sharing his pain with her. “I… I’m not sure if I can help you, Martha. I… might not be able to help people anymore.”

“That’s not the main reason why I’m here, Jamie. I just wanted to see you. The one person who knows my son almost as well as I do. How are you holding up?”

The question caught him completely off guard. “I’m not doing a great job,” Jamie found himself saying to his own surprise, “I miss him. More than anything.”

She took his hand again and held it between her own. “I know that feeling. Both of your partner being missing in action and of Kaidan, specifically, being missing. Let me help.”

He avoided her eyes and took his time before answering. Somehow, this choked him up. He didn't want her to hope, or to invest her energy and love where it was lost. “I might be beyond help, you know.” He hoped she couldn’t hear the hoarseness in his voice.

“Or you might not be. If Kaidan comes back, I want him to find a boyfriend who was supported by me. And if he doesn’t… Well, then I don’t have anyone else left in this world. So please, let me at least be there for you.”

“Shepard?” Miranda had suddenly appeared next to them.

“Miranda!” He saw her shooting a suspicious glance at Martha and realized he needed to diffuse the situation at once. “This is Martha.”

Miranda relaxed. “You know each other?”

Martha stood up and offered Miranda her hand. “I’m Kaidan’s mother. I wanted to check in on my son’s boyfriend.” 

Miranda looked at them alternately, surprised. “Of… of course. In that case, I’m sorry… Shepard, I need to run another test. Visiting hour’s over.”

He took her arm and pulled himself up. “Will you come back?”, he asked Martha.

“Of course, if you want me to. Would tomorrow be all right?”

He shot a quick glance at Miranda who shrugged. “I think so. Just ask for me. I’ll tell them you’ll come. Or…” For some reason, he was suddenly afraid she might not come back, and he quickly gave her authorization to message him on his omni-tool. “Better yet – write me a message.” Better make it as easy for her as possible.

“I’ll see you tomorrow”, Martha said with her warm smile.

Somehow, tomorrow seemed a lot less frightening all of a sudden.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two weeks after the reapers' destruction.

After several days of talking to Aria’s informants, Kaidan could still not shake the feeling that Aria was making a big mistake by having him do this work. He was careful not to get followed or seen when he went to talk to people. He made sure there were some of Aria’s people as protection in place after he left. But he couldn't shake the growing feeling that this was even bigger than he’d imagined with each passing day. He was worried about his informants, even though, on some level, he knew they were probably quite shady people, being in league with Aria. But he had to make promise after promise not to compromise people, and the knowledge that he wasn’t going to be able to keep those promises was like a constant itch on his mind.

Not that he needed additional constant worries. There were too many things he’d stuffed in little boxes in his mind already, which he’d have to think about eventually. And then there was the fact that, even though he hadn’t been fighting for days, he kept feeling worse, not better. Chakwas was probably right, he should be resting. But now that he was in this, he couldn’t get out. He couldn’t leave his responsibilities to others, even though every single thing he did became more and more exhausting, not the least getting up in the morning, and his head was constantly splitting. At times, it got so bad he wasn’t even able to hide it from James. The occasional worried glances he caught from him made him feel more inadequate than anything else really. He could guess the young man’s thoughts. They’d be better off without him. What if he’d just declined Aria’s request? He wished that had been a possibility, but he was sure there was no way of staying neutral in this coming confrontation, and Aria had held her position for hundreds of years. She was the safe bet. 

Kaidan tried not to flinch every time a step sent a random jolt of pain through his body. He was running on the power of his will alone, and he wasn’t sure how much longer it would hold. But he still didn’t have time to take a break. 

Right now, he needed to talk to the turian, Alleus. Yesterday, Alleus had told him yet another part of the story that made him feel uneasy in some way. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it yet, but something wasn’t quite right about this entire situation. He had more and more doubts they fully understood Vinia T’Keyn’s motivations. Was it really her goal to take over from Aria? Wasn’t she way too obvious for that? And if that was what she wanted to do, why hadn’t any of the rumors they’d heard about her rallying the people for a revolt or her planning to attack weapons staches proven true? Why was she still vehemently refusing to talk to them instead of discussing any kind of terms? The problem wasn’t with their informants, Kaidan was sure of that. They seemed as honest and honorable as people working together with Aria could be. The problem lied with the information they had. It was always off just enough to make Kaidan wonder. What if there was something else going on? Something he couldn’t wrap his only half functioning mind around at this time? But he couldn’t work it out and it was just another disappointment, another frustration. In moments like these, when he tried to think about a problem and dug deeper only to feel his thoughts slipping away, not being able to grasp the root of the problem, he most felt like a shadow of himself.

They turned the corner into the street of Alleus’ Shop. Something was off.

“Do you think we’re being watched?”, he whispered to James. 

They did their best to see if there was anyone else around, but they were quite alone in the street. 

“Don’t think so, Spectre.” 

He didn’t either. Something else then.

He had gotten into the habit of only taking James on these missions. He’d considered Garrus, but having Archangel follow him around wasn’t exactly discreet. Javik was, of course, out of the question. He’d taken Liara with him two or three times, just to have her professional opinion on things, but she was busy reestablishing herself, posing as one of her own agents, trying to at least salvage whatever was salvageable on Omega. He was quite sure that if she just did what she did best, she would eventually hit on something of use for them. Until then, all he could do was pay as much attention to his surroundings as he could, and accept James as a companion who was surprisingly capable. 

His heart dropped when he saw the mark on the wall. Someone had very clearly missed someone with a shot right next to Alleus’ shop’s window. He gestured towards James, but James had noticed it at the same time. They did their best to look inconspicuous for Omega’s standards and entered the store. 

The inside of the store was a mess. Someone had knocked over a shelf and small spare parts had been thrown on the floor, from all kinds of shelves around the room. There had clearly either been a struggle, or someone had left them a sign. 

Kaidan shook his head in silence, being hit by another wave of fatigue. Had their questions cost this man his life?

“It’s you!” A whisper made him flinch. He could make out the somewhat angular silhouette of a head in the backroom’s doorframe, and he felt a rush of relief, until he realized the spikes he’d expected were missing. Not Alleus. A turian woman. She invited them into the backroom with a wave and closed the door behind them.

“Do you work here?”, Kaidan asked as soon as the door was closed.

“No,” she answered.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Alleus is my husband. He told me about you.” Of course he had a wife. Probably kids too, to make things even worse.

“What happened?”

She sat down and wrapped her arms around her chest before answering. “Some ruffians came. Obviously not Aria’s. They took him because he was refusing to do… something for them. I was here. He told me to hide as soon as he saw them and I was back here and saw the whole thing. You have to get him back.”

“Wait. They didn’t do this because… of us?”

“I don’t think so, no. There was something else. They wanted something.”

Kaidan sighed. This, at least, was a relief. It wasn’t entirely his fault. “So… what did they want?”

“I don’t exactly know. I didn’t hear everything they said to him. It must have been something dangerous though. He called them crazy. Fanatics. They must be planning something. And now he knows it, and that’s why they took him. The fact that he knows it should be enough reason for you to get him back, right?”

“We'd probably go after him anyways,” James said. 

“Please,” she said, “Find him. I need him.”

The strained way in which her mandibles moved and her hopeless facial expression had this strange effect on Kaidan. For a moment, there was a kinship between them, even though she probably couldn't see it. Why did people always loose the ones most important to them?

“We’ll try our best”, he said and turned away quickly, so he didn’t have to look her in the eyes any longer. 

Half an hour later, they’d picked up Javik. Liara had used her shadow broker skills to track the ruffians and Alleus to a warehouse. They’d not come out in the meantime, so there was still a chance. 

“And there they walk past us again, plotting our destruction!”, the mad prophet yelled as they came across him yet again, “Look at them! The humans want to open the gates through which our destruction poured once more. They are a blight on this galaxy, bringing in their wake an even greater blight. They are conjuring up their next betrayal and all they need is to open the doorway!”

“I wish he’d just shut up,” growled Kaidan when they were out of his earshot.

“Yeah, he’s not as much fun as he was,” James said, “I think people are listening to the crazy shit he’s talking.” 

“Let’s just hope they don’t act on what they are hearing or humans won’t be safe on this station any longer.”

“When the reapers came,” Javik said, “there were people in my cycle who said it had been us who’d brought destruction, not them. They will always look for the simplest explanation. Always look to lay blame on someone. It is in the nature of primitives.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

They didn’t talk any more while making their way to the warehouse. Kaidan tried to get his head on the task. They had backup, since Kaidan didn’t trust himself enough any more to just walk into a situation. Garrus in a good sniping position and Liara as biotic backup should be enough to get them out if they walked into yet another trap. 

They broke into the warehouse as quietly as possible and started searching between the mountains of crates. 

They didn’t have to search for long. It was just when Kaidan saw Alleus, in a strange sitting position at the end of the corridor, when they came under fire. With Garrus sniping all their enemies he could see, it was just a simple routine fight. Kaidan let his instincts take over, enjoying the adrenaline and that he didn't have to think further ahead than the next couple of seconds. It would even have been a welcome change, might have made him feel like himself again, if it hadn’t been for the last bullet that came straight for him and was caught by his barrier. For a split second his field of vision went white with the pain suddenly shooting through his brain. He had to check if he’d been hit, so intense had it been. He wasn't quite sure if the fact that his body was just acting up was better or worse.

“Are you all right, major?”, James asked him after making sure the field was safe. Kaidan was still sitting behind cover, where he’d dropped to the floor, trying to wrap his head around what just happened, still feeling a bit shaky and feverish.

“I… Yes. I just… Shit, I need a holiday, James.” 

James chuckled. “Don’t we all, major. Don’t we all.”

Kaidan took the hand James offered and pulled himself up, ignoring the stars dancing before his eyes. He then looked around to check on Alleus and a sick feeling seeped into his stomach.

“Oh no,” he whispered, examining the dead turian, “I’m so sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?”, Javik asked.

“We should have been here sooner. Maybe protected our people better…” 

He knew there was nothing he could have done. But he still felt responsible. They were both caught up in the same shit, and it had cost this man his life. 

“Another dead end,” James sighed.

“Literally,” Kaidan agreed. He wanted to kick someone. Punch someone. But even if there had been anyone puncheable around, he was too tired.

“You should look in on Chakwas when we get back to the ship, major.”

Kaidan nodded. Right now, he couldn’t go on like this. 

He barely noticed Chakwas’ scolding. Yes, he was overexerting himself. A lot. But there was nothing he could do to change it. After examining him, Chakwas left the room for a minute and he sank back on one of the beds, almost ready to fall asleep this instance. 

“Kaidan?”, Chakwas’ voice sounded from the door again, startling him. He must have almost nodded off.

“Yes?” He sat up and looked very intently at the pattern on the floor.

“James told me what happened.”

A quick glance was enough to confirm what he had heard in her voice. Her expression was beyond concerned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean: He saw you catch a bullet with your barrier and collapse. Coincidence?”

There wasn’t any lie that would satisfy her, so he decided to omit the truth. “I’m tired, Dr Chakwas. I think I need a day off. I’ll ask Aria.”

“You need more than a day, Kaidan. You should consider letting someone else take the wheel. Or you’ll have to take a very, very long time off.”

He nodded. She knew he couldn't do that, didn't she? “I’ll give it some thought.” 

As old as he felt while he was trudging out of the infirmary – while he was at the point of accepting the truth of her words, he wasn’t ready to give his work with Aria up. It was too important.

Garrus and Tali, who were in the mess hall, waved him over, and he slumped into a chair next to Tali.

“I have good news, Major,” Tali said.

“That would be a first,” he sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“It’s been rough,” Garrus said, “But I think you’re doing just fine."

"Just fine, huh?"

Garrus grinned. "My professional opinion is that you're doing a good job. This isn’t an easy nut to crack.”

Kaidan nodded. “Quite the opposite.”

“But you might, if everything goes well, soon count on earth”, Tali said, and Kaidan was sure that under that helmet she was smiling.

“You’re going to get the quantum entanglement communicator running?”

“Yes,” Tali nodded, “It shouldn’t be more than two days and you should be able to talk to someone on earth. We'll be able to hear from them. Maybe even to hear from Shepard. What do you say? Those are the kinds of good news you have a quarian on board for, aren’t they?”

Contact earth… in a matter of days? Somehow, he didn’t feel ready. He hadn’t really achieved anything here. What could he even report back? He had gotten himself stuck in a bad situation and kept fucking it up? He imagined calling earth, receiving a response, and… He thought he might be more thrilled about this, but now that it seemed to be right there… He wanted to talk to someone on earth more than anything. But at the same time, there was this existential dread of what news he might receive. It would be nice, contacting them so soon. It would be good for the people on earth who were waiting for them. It would be nice to let his mother know he was alive. The alliance would probably be thrilled to hear from them, to give him instructions on how to proceed on Omega… But it couldn’t change the fact that they were stuck here. And if Jamie was gone… He tried to imagine the idea of being stuck in this awful place without the tiniest bit of hope of seeing him again. It was certainly a way to make a bad thing worse.

“Are you all right, Kaidan?”, Tali asked.

“Yeah. Yeah. Just… thinking. Would be nice to be able to establish contact with someone outside of this galaxy, wouldn’t it.”

“Indeed it would,” Tali agreed. 

“I think I’ll just take some food up to my cabin and go to bed. I might be a bit overworked.”

“Overworked isn’t exactly the word I’d use right now,” Garrus said, “I’d say you should stop working or you’ll kill yourself. We might be more alike than you'd like to believe, major."

"I'm still better looking."

Garrus shot a glance at Tali and grinned. "I suppose that's a matter of perspective."

“At least we’ll know more in a couple of days,” Tali said.

Kaidan got up and grabbed the table for a second when the stars in front of his eyes started to dance again. 

“Thank you, Tali. Keep up the good work.”

“Of course. What would any of you do without your quarrian engineer?”

“We’d not do as well as we are doing now, that much is certain."

He didn't even get to eating what he brought up with him. As soon as the doors closed behind him his desire to lie down and close his eyes became overwhelming. He stumbled to the bed, hugging Jamie's pullover, imagining there were still some molecules of his scent left in there. The idea of getting news about him, maybe even talking to him a couple of days from now seemed surreal. Considering his luck at the moment, something would surely go wrong in the meantime.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost 8 weeks after the reaper's destruction.

“So – what did you find out?”

They were sitting in a hidden corner on the roof-deck, eating the ridiculous amounts of food Martha had brought. They’d been eating together for the last couple of days and she always brought enough for at least three of them, and it made Shepard think of the times he’d watched in wonder as Kaidan wolfed down at least twice the amount of food he himself needed. He couldn’t help but smile at the idea of Martha making food for her ever-hungry son. He vaguely remembered his own parents remark on his own appetite when he was a growing teenager… bringing up Kaidan must have been a lot.

“Jamie?” He looked up at Martha, still smiling. “What?”, she asked, confused.

“I’m sorry, I seem to have zoned out. Not usually my way. But then I’m not at work, am I.”

“May I ask what you were thinking about?” Somehow, this was not a strange question. Martha was the first person in a long time whom he didn't mind talking to about his thoughts.

He chuckled. “Kaidan. He was always so happy when I didn’t eat up all my food. Or got distracted or called away and he got the rest. Until I started working together with biotics, I thought I was eating a lot.”

Martha smiled. “When he came to live with us again, just from what I was buying, people thought I had at least two teenage sons.”

“I wish I’d known him back then. I wish we’d known each other for ages. What was he like?”

She smiled for a couple of seconds, playing with the ring on her necklace. “He was difficult. Angry and sad. But so sweet and tender at times. 17 is a difficult age for most people. It was just a lot harder for him.”

“I was very difficult at that age as well.”

Martha nodded. “I can believe that.”

He wasn’t sure she could imagine the extent to which he’d been difficult, if that was the right word, when he’d been seventeen. Waking up every night drenched in cold sweat, not being able to get the images out of his head. Letting his sorrow out on the people around him during the day. Sometimes he wondered… If he’d met Kaidan back then, would they have liked each other? Would they have found a certain kinship in their suffering?

As much as he loved spending time with her, as much as it helped him heal… He kept imagining what it would be like to have his own mother sit here with him. She’d been gone for such a long time, and yet the more time he had to reflect, the rawer and more broken he felt, the more he missed her.

He sighed and took another mouth full of pasta. “What were you asking earlier?”, he asked, still chewing.

“I’d asked what you’d found out. If you have found out anything at all, that is.”

“About the Normandy.”

“Yes.”

“Haven’t gotten around to talking to Hackett yet.” He intently studied the way the pasta on his fork curled. Martha didn’t say anything, she just looked at him. He felt read. “Alright. I… I’ve been putting the meeting off.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

Somehow, he wished she wasn’t so understanding. He felt like a coward.

He sighed apologetically. “So everything I know we know already. They went through the relay. The communicator is broken. There haven’t been any resources to repair it. So they put it somewhere to wait it's turn.”

“You know, it drives me crazy, the idea that Kaidan has been trying to call us and hasn’t been able to get through.”

Jamie closed his eyes for a second. He could see the communicator on the Normandy in front of him, see Kaidan push the buttons, try to reach earth… Had he tried to call them? Had his been broken as well? Shepard was sure he’d try and repair it. And once he realized it wasn’t working… Shepard wondered if he’d been angry. Had it been more of a punching it with biotics situation or more of a staring out into the endless depths of the universe for days situation?

“I’m sorry, Martha. I really am.”

“It’s alright. I just thought you might have had a chance to ask today.”

Shepard sighed. “I’ve been avoiding him again. I should stop doing that.”

“It’s understandable. You don’t know what your next step is going to be.”

Sometimes it was confusing how nice she was. Were mothers usually like this? He seemed to have forgotten.

“No,” he said, “It’s not understandable. I know what I want to do. I just don’t want to talk to him about what happened up there. But I won’t be able to put it off forever. I should just do it, and ask him to commit the resources to contacting the Normandy that she and the crew on board deserve.”

“Is it classified or are you allowed to talk about it?”

He closed his eyes again, and for a split second, he was there again, felt himself pull the trigger…

“I don’t want to.”

“Of course. I understand.”

He looked into the distance for a second. There was a surprising amount of pigeons on Vancouver’s roofs.

“I’m actually kind of amazed I’m saying this, Martha”, he then began, “But I think I will tell you one day. It’s strange, I haven’t known you very long and usually it takes me a while to start liking people. But you… you were there for me when I didn't really have anyone else. I feel like you’re just the friend I needed.”

She took his hand. “You needed a mom, Jamie. You’re a son without a mother, and I’m a mother without a son. Of course we’re drawn towards each other.”

It was strange, the way she put it, but it was also true. They did need each other at the moment. 

“So what are your plans for next week?”, she asked.

“I don’t know yet. I’m taking a leave of absence. A long one. Maybe I’ll never go back. I’ll look for a place in the city. I heard real estate is very cheap at the moment. Especially when there’s walls missing. But I’m not picky.”

She looked at him intently for a couple of seconds, as if she was working up the courage to say the next thing. "You could also stay at my place.”

He just stared at her. Was this what she'd been building up to?

“That… would be so weird though. Wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe. It would save you time and money.”

He chortled. “I can’t just move in with my boyfriend’s mother. I'm not even sure I'd move in with my own mother. Admittedly, I'm not sure what the proper etiquette is at my age, since I don't ever think about that, really..."

Martha interrupted him.

“It’s very quiet”, she said softly, and the way she said it made him look up at her. The lines around her eyes and mouth seemed deeper, and he realized how grieve stricken she looked, even though she did everything in her power to make him feel better. Her voice was throaty when she continued. “It’s too quiet, Jamie. I’ve lost my husband. My son is somewhere out there, and we don’t know when he’s coming back, if ever. I’ve been with people for the entire war, sharing everything with them in the camp, but now they’re all gone home, and I’m alone… I’m not asking for your sake. Please. Stay at my place. Because I can’t stand these empty rooms any longer.”

He thought back to the times in his life when he’d been left behind. The desire to be left alone, but also that irrational fear of being alone, not knowing if maybe everyone else had also left and he was the last person alive… He imagined himself alone in an apartment in Vancouver and he knew that he was dreading the idea.

“Alright then. That’s what I’ll do then. I’ll live at your place.”

Those societal rules probably weren't for people like them anyways. If there were any people like them. Which was the point, wasn't it?


End file.
